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Avoid

I have been a member of Virgin Media for quite a while now.I am quite unhappy with their service i have to say.VirginMedia offer broadband,telephone lines and also offer TV subscription packages as well.In the years i have been using this company for the last year i have been really unhappy with them.

When i joined up here i was given installation at my house for the internet at a price of 70 pounds!Yes just for getting the internet installed at my house!The internet has been working quite well for me ever since then but in the last few months my internet has been going down each time,the connection has been lost a few times as well out of no where.

Virgin Media seem to have the same excuse when you ring them,they always say a technician is working on the problem and your internet will be back in an hour.If you use the Internet daily and are with Virgin Media then you will probably agree with me when i say the company are poor in paying their customers back with good customer service.

Yet if you do not pay your bills on time they be sending a whole bunch of letters,who would pay them when your internet goes down nearly every day yet they want their monthly cash,i have to until my contract finishes and i for sure will not join them again!

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Fantastic service

There is no other internet service provider out there like Virgin Media in my estimation. They provide you with a land line and a broadband connection at the price of 14.50 for a month. This is a really top deal and I have had no problems with them in my full year of being a member. They have always kept the connection working well and also provided some good support over the phone when any problem has happened with the connection.

The trick with them is when you move house they put a new contract on your account without your permission. Also their staff on the phone do not understand much about issues with moving house. This only happened to me yesterday when calling them up. Their connection has had no problems at all and works excellent always.

They are charging customers 1.25 for a paper bill now so just go electric with them as the more papers the more you get charged of them! Price rise has also happened with them and they are getting more expensive to be with. In the one year with them they have actually had only one problem at times. This has been loss of service in the area.Everything else has been though fine for me with no problems at all.

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Once an excellent company - now owned by Virgin Media

I am quite a good position to make a review on Blueyonder as I worked for them from the year it opened in 2001. I was in the tech support department back then. At the time we were all situated on one floor. This was the News Groups, Abuse, 1st and Second Line Support etc. Moral was absolutely great. At times when servers went down the phones went into meltdown but our only thoughts were to get the servers back working again.

At the time the computers and work stations were brand new. Although it was a grade one listed building in the Albert Dock, we were all looked after well. There were even pool tables and fish tanks. It was a great atmosphere.

Speaking honestly and as a Blueyonder customer myself the broadband service was fantastic. I honestly think that the service was the best around.

Over the following few years times changed a lot. As more and more customers came on board I don't think the company upgraded the servers fast enough. It is no secret. We were actually told to tell customers that the servers were being upgraded. Sadly this was often after the event. I think a lot of this was to do with competition. Blueyonder was winning awards and wanted to stay ahead of the rest. We were continually winning awards for our excellent customer services.

One service that we offered and I felt was poor was the email side. Blueyonder had 30Mb mail boxes whilst many of the staff had 3 and 4 gig mail servers with other providers such as google.

When Blueyonder was taken over by NTL staff moral dipped quite a lot and many started to leave and look for jobs elsewhere. By the time the name was changed to Virgin Media jobs being shifted out of England over to India. Customers were not happy and many of the staff in the UK had to deal with the problems created abroad.

At this time it was time for me to leave. I still believe the service is excellent, email is poor and customer services very poor.

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Three cheers for pen and ink!

I was given to understand, as a pensioner, that the computer is all about information technology. "Information"?? What a laugh! My established means of access to the blueyonder email service has suddenly been turned upside-down, without a prior word of warning or explanation. If this procedural jungle is what so-called "information technology" is all about, then you can stuff it up your jumper! I am no longer interested and will revert to pen and ink and pillar box. They all work.

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Fine once your up and running

Blueyonder broadband... after a bit of a fiasco with the installation - three goes by their hapless technicians before things were working - the connection seems fine. However connection is done with a CD which is intended for a modem / Windows PC. If you don't use a PC directly with the cable modem (ie if you have want a wireless router connected to their modem and maybe Apple computers at home as well), they don't seem willing to support you. I told Blueyonder when I registered that I had an Apple network at home and they said 'fine' and signed me up, but now it seems the only way to get their advice is via their 0900 £1 a minute support line, not impressive at all. They haven't responded to emails at all.

In fact, all I needed were the manual settings for my hardware, and a friendly computer geek told me how to sort that out: it's all to do with DHCP, firewalls and DNS and the information is there to see on your router setup screen - if you know where to look! email me if your stuck, on derekm@myway.com

Result happiness and a service that looks way better than PlusNet and BT who'd been abysmal.

So why don't Telewest / Blueyonder supply this information for installers when they need it?

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Having used telewest (now called blueyonder) as our telephone provider since we moved into this house 6 odd years ago, it was natural to use them for internet access (dial up) when we first got a computer.

After about a year of using dial up Telewest did an offer of free installation and network card for the broadband (then 512k) connection. So we went for it.

We phoned their customer services and about a week later the engineer came round and performed the installation. He seemed to know what he was doing and as we already had the telephone line, it only took about an hour, including him taking the back off the PC and installing the network card. Telewest also provides you with the actual cable modem (you're renting it from them, so its never actually yours), which can be connected to your PC by either network card or USB.

The mac address of the connection then needed to be registered with them and within minutes we were enjoying the new speed.

Now at the time I changed computers I decided to set up a mini-network between the old computer and new, with the new computer connecting via a USB connection. Having phoned Blueyonder in advance and explaining what I wanted to do, and getting lots of very good information from the technical advisor at this time, I phoned them up once the new computer was fully set up to register the new MAC address.

(To get the MAC address, you need to clisk <START>, <RUN>, then type in IPCONFIG)

Here I came across my first problem with the technical team, the person I was now speaking to, told me they did'nt support USB connection!?!?! However I soon persuaded her that I had already organised how I was going to do this.

And my second problem was that the USB drivers that came with the modem do NOT work, if you have a webstar modem, you will need to download updated ones via a network card, and install them before you can use the USB connection.

You no longer need to register the MAC address of a new computer, as my with my latest computer the broadband worked as soon as it was installed.

*************************************Prices*************************************256k - £14.99/month - for the first year when taken with a phone line then £17.99/month1MB - £19.99/month - for three months then £25/month2Mb - £35/month4Mb - £50/month

The first month is free with the 2MB and 4MB services, and installation is free until Jan. 31st 2005.

Always on connection, as soon as you turn on your computer you are on-line. On-line service page, tells you of any issues with the blueyonder service. Upto 5 e-mail addresses, which can each have 3 aliases. 30MB personal web space.As you are only renting the modem, its blueyonders responsibility to fix it if it goes wrong.Blueyonder now has an anti-virus filter on e-mail (although this is not 100% protection)

The connection is not always stable, I will often get up to find no connection and although this normally only means rebooting the modem (unplugging it then plugging it back in) it can be a pain. I also find the e-mail server goes down regularly, for example I cannot access my e-mail today.

This is a bright colourful page with links to various channels, along with searches, services, broadband. help&support and web mail. I have'nt actually used this website for anything other than webmail when the e-mail service is down. And the service page, to see if I'm the only one have problems.

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As I sit here waiting for XP to install again on my computer, I figured I'd write about my internet connection. I really miss it at the moment, my main machine / server is offline so I'm having to use my laptop, which can't get online itself unless I call Blueyonders customer services.

Blueyonder are a great ISP in most respects. I used to hate them, curse them, and at one point swore I would never use them. You see, for over a year, everyone who lived more than five floors above me could have a cable connection from them. They eventually expanded their services, so that everyone who lived three floors below me could have an internet connection too, but no, not me.

I caved in as soon as the service was available on my floor though, and bought their services. No more dial up for me.

This is just a quick story explaining some of my experiences, then I'll add some important things to consider about a cable connection.

I initially bought the 512K service, which, after a little while, I upgraded to their 1Meg - both of these have 256K upload.

When I purchased their service I had to wait a while for a guy to come out and fit the connection. He took a look at my computer, case off, parts littered everywhere, and said 'You look like you like computers, if you are comfortable with it and would like to fit the network card yourself then you're welcome to. It will speed up getting this fitted for you.' Thumbs up to him!

I fitted the card and pluged in the cable while he drilled holes in the wall and fitted the main connection. Once he was done, I had to stand back and let him do the network settings then do a bandwidth test, with me witnessing it to say that I accepted the speed of the connection. He changed some browser settings which made me wince, and I had to change them back the second he left, but I do have to admit that I can see their reasoning for doing so - if your connection suddenly breaks because of software you have installed, or silly changes you have made, then that's your fault.

I used their broadband service for a couple of years with very few problems, then, one day a Telewest salesman came nocking on the door trying to sell me the phone service. I dragged him inside and made call his employer to check if there was a faster internet connection available. He was almost as elated as me to hear that the 2Meg service had just been released - now he had a really easy sale!

So, a week later the telewest tech came out again and started the upgrade - this is where you get to see how good their customer service REALLY is. I live in a block of flats, and the cable boxes are in utility cupboards that are locked. The council gave a set of keys to the caretakers, who lost them, and also to one of their offices, who also lost them. There was only one set of keys left, and they were in the main council office. The council didn't want to give the keys out. They eventually agreed to come round and open the cupboard, but they opened the wrong one.

So, we had a problem. The tech that came out knew that we were really excited about the upgrade and didn't want to just leave and make us wait another week. In the end we went down to the main council office together and I explained the situation as a tenant and begged with them to give us the keys for just a short time. The council would only give us the keys if we placed a sizeable depost. I had only loose change on me, so the Blueyonder guy ended up handing over his wallet, with his money, credit card and drivers license it it, over to the lady from the council.

He was understandably pretty peeved, and he did let is show when we left the office, but he did make clear that it was the council he was sick of, not me as a customer, and the fact that he was willing to go above and beyond what he was meant to do is something I am impressed with.

The 2 Meg service was great for the few months we had it - after a while it got upgraded to 3Meg for the same price, and then again in December 2004 to 4Meg - this time we got an upload upgrade to 384K!

I now get an average download speed of 500K, my upload speed is probably about 30 or 40K but I haven't been able to test this because most of the people I upload files to have ridiculously slow connections and weren't even taxing my upload when I was on the slower services. I know I hit more than 20K on 256 so it should be well above that now.

There are a few things I should say about the service - number one, when I contacted them to ask about internet connection sharing they said that it was not against the terms of service, but it was also not something they would offer support for. That was good enough for me, but for others it may be a problem. That said a lot of broadband providers don't allow internet connection sharing at all, so if you are looking for an ISP that will allow you to have more than one computer connected to the internet at once call them first and check!

Number two: Blueyonder give you a 'free' cable modem when you connect (it's bundled as part of the connection fee, so I wouldn't really call it free) - in my case I got a 'Surfboard' which is a decent enough modem for my needs, but lately they have been giving other ones out instead, which don't sound as great. If you are worried about the problems reported with these modems, you might want to pick up another one instead from a computer store, then ask for a cheaper connection package - they do give you that option.

Number three: Their security control is in the form of MAC addresses - a MAC address is a unique number assigned to each network card. If you ever change your network card, or decide to make a different computer the server, or whatever, I would strongly recommend you go to the 'self help' page online and add that MAC address BEFORE changing it. You can have up to five addresses registered at any one time.

If you don't do that, then you won't be able to get back online to update the list when you put the new card in, and will have to call tech support instead. The guys on the tech support line are helpful, and will do it straight away, but you will still have to wait on hold for a while and it is a bit annoying.

Number four: The personal web space you get with blueyonder doesn't support PHP / CGI or anything fancy, and the email aliases all forward to the same account, so they aren't really that great. They're just free extras, and you get them with every package, so they're not important to me, but I thought I'd let you know.

Number five: Don't sign up to their e-billing unless you really want it. They send you out a pin, and I lost mine. I'm trying to get back on to paper billing now but the normal customer services (as opposed to tech support) has poor opening hours over Christmas so I'll have to wait until later in January to get back on to paper bills. DO go on direct debit because you get charged 2 pounds a month more if you don't.

OK, now I've listed a few major points I'll summarize. I pay about 60 pounds a month for a 4 Meg connection and a phone line. I've had almost no outages over the last few years except when I've had financial trouble and not been able to pay my bill. They are quick to cut you off if you don't pay, but that's business so I can't complain there!

The connection is always fast, stable and reliable and there is NO cap on how much you can download / upload. I have maxed out my connection for days on end before downloading development tools and not heard a peep from them for it.

The tech support for the most part know what they're talking about, and if you do stump them with a problem they are quick to escallate the call to the second line team, who are real experts.

I'd highly, highly recommend Blueyonder to anyone who lives in an area where they are available - they beat BTs ADSL service by a long way.

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I joined blueyonder broadband about a year ago now and I am glad to report that i have never been happier!!! The service has been running non stop for a year and I?ve never had a glitch, the service is fast, great quality, its not expensive, cost nothing to get set up i.e. free modem and fitting and the email address has been great no spam at all!!!! Id recommend it to anyone, I?ve used AOL, Freeserve and BT internet in the past and they do not compare in the least - blueyonder is way out-front only problem am moving house soon and it is not available at the new house and am totally dreading using a different company If you can get it - JUST DO IT - You?ll never look back!!

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Dont you just hate surfing the web just lately! It seems no matter what site you go to, this one included, that you get inundated with Pop-Ups. Im forever having to click little crosses, I swear I dream about clicking these little crosses in my sleep! You might only have 10 minutes to spend to search the net and you can spend 50% of that time getting rid of all the useless pop-up's that just keep popping up. My friend was having the same problem and contacted blueyonder through her broadband instant support. The site she was told to try was tucows.blueyonder.co.uk no need for the www. Once there she did a search for eliminating pop-ups. The one she found was called 12 ghosts pop-up killer, and it did the trick, no more pop-ups!!!!!Hooray. So as soon as she mailed me with the news I went straight to tucows.blueyonder.co.uk and typed in the search box for 12 ghosts. Within seconds a window comes up with about half a dozen different programmes that 12 ghosts do, and in amongst them was the pop up killer. I clicked on it and I clicked the button that said down load and it told me it would take 3 minutes to download, in fact it only took 30 seconds if that, and it download straight to my Desktop. It installed within seconds too, and I was then back on the net to try out my new little pop-up killer. To my dismay it didnt work.I wanted to try out a site which I knew had pop-ups so I came straight to dooyoo which i know is terrible for pop-ups, and pop-ups were popping up all over the shop. Damn I thought, so decided to have a look at the instructions. I went to start, programmes and clicked on the 12 ghosts pop-up killer BOSS KEY. In there a little window pops up. On this window you have the options at the header where you can click: pop-ups killer, History cleaner, Boss key, options, general or about. To prevent any pop up you need to click on the pop ups k iller and check the box that says 'dont allow explorer to open up a secondary window' once this is done you are pop up free. There are many more options in this programme which you may find useful, like deleting history, or cookies etc. There are probably many more but I have found the one thing that i needed it for. The only disadvantage is that if you are surfing the net and you click on a tab that needs to open another window then you have no chance, and you will need to go back and uncheck the little tab that you clicked on to stop the secondary window from opening. But other than that i found surfing the net an happy affair again. So if you want your pop-ups to pop off you know what to do, go to tucows.blueyonder.co.uk and you can have a pop-up free surf too.

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In the earlier days of internet I was with 2 ISPs; Globalnet and Virgin Internet. On moving to the midlands, I swopped TV, telephone and Internet to Telewest. By default my ISP was Blueyonder I have found the following about the Blueyonder Service. _____The dial-up_________ You may find your dial-up failing regularly. ______The e-mail__________ The pop server is slow. E-mails take a long time to download. ___The company________ Try to shift responsibility for raising profit downwards through the organisation and nothing improves. If you are a serious user, don't bother with Blueyonder, the awards mean nothing, go with a decent provider and save yourself time and frustration for the extra £1.

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"Now have to pay for customer service!"

I have been a blueyonder customer for roughtly 2 years now and i have to admit they arnt that bad.. I was one of the first people to be connected on this new broadband service in my area and was amazed at the speeds! but with a price around £35 now £30 i wanted a good fast and reliable service. Things were all fine for the first few months until i started getting connections problems which were very annoying! The problems with i did encounter with blueyonder are as followed -: * Its getting a lot lot slower! Prob as more and more people are connecting. * we now have to pay for customer service! * the connection problems (which i have to admit Not to many now well done B.y) Other things to watch out for * they now put a £2 onto your bill if you dont pay by direct debt! * Theres rumours that P2p Bans / merging with ntl, may take place! Blueyonder is a good Isp for anyone, but if your after Speed, fixed ips, etc Then blueyonder isnt much good for you. Blueyonder isnt the cheapest isp around either, for example you can get a 512/256 (double the upload speed of blueyonder) for a mere 22.99! Beats blueyonders £30 by a long way! Oh well i cant really complain! Ive got blueyonder 512/128 for £15 for the next 6 months! Due to the fact i wanted to cancel to move to the cheaper option of Adsl. Seems to me that blueyonder are desperate to keep hold of the customers it already has!

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It's good. Everyone will tell you that using a cable modem as opposed to a dial up connection is akin to the difference between a biplane and Concorde. I noticed on here there was a query about the engineeers, I know that installation fo the cable modem was troublesome and awkard. Yet one phone call and I was up and running, pleased? I should be but befoe my phone call I had deinstalled that software which I had been told was a must by the installation engineer. If it was a must why did it only take phone call for a technician to flip a switch and I was up and running. Aside form issues the service is superb, the benfits of downlaoding are obvious, but the real benefit is the internet become useable. Infact it becomes the mass medium it always promised us but somehow never failed to deliver. Suddenly Web Surfing is just that. Telewest, those behind Blueyonder have also managed to provide the one thing BT can't, affordability. BT must be choking on their broadband, why offer such an uncompetitve package? It must be the only way forward, Telewest themsleves also semed to have cleaned their appaling customer service reocrd, somethign which has dogged them for years. They kept constant contact with myself and were always polite. If you are still on dial up, why? Broadband must be the future, how long will dial last? Judging by the growing trend of new takers for broadband and the improving speed companies now offer, not long I imagine. If you can have Blueyonder Broadband, you should. It's an excelelnt service, perhaps it would be difficult to iron out the niggles regarding compatibility, afterall every PC is different. But this is a service theat benefits the light and heavy user.

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"No service"

I had a letter which came through my door from blueyonder telling me that I could be accessing broadband via cable. I called the next day and was told that the cable would be installed the following week. Installation was quick and the cable was fed through the hole which the technicians had drilled through the wall in the front of my house. Then came the problem......I couldn't connect to the service. The technicians left and said that another would be on his way over to fix the problem. An hour later he arrived and said that there was noise on the network and it would have to be referred to the network team. Anyway, this was three weeks ago and since I have called the technical support line several times and had another technician visit. I have written a letter of complaint about the absence of a connection. I received a phone call only to be told that broadband is not available in my area and the cable shouldn't have been installed. They are now arranging for someone to come over to take the modem back and fill the holes drilled in my brickwork. What a bunch of Cowboys! I have heard that Telewest Broadband are in financial trouble and this doesn't suprise me at all now.